Science

Contact Andrea Mazzocchi

Science at Quaritch is broadly defined, ranging from medicine, anatomy, pharmacology (including herbals) and natural history to astronomy, physics, chemistry and mathematics.

An interest in the origins of modern chemistry has led to a specialisation in works on alchemy and distillation, and from there we have also branched out into occultism and hermeticism. We have developed an interest in gastronomy and books on nutrition and wine, an area which over the years has become one of our specialities.
  1. [EXCHANGE.]

    Cours de change & d’arbitrage fait par moi Baronne Lara (?) de Narbonne a Montpellier au Pensionnat des peres des...

    [Montpellier, 1783].

    A lovely manuscript course of exchange and arbitrage, produced for a school run by the Lasalians in Montpellier by an alas unidentified baroness (possibly Françoise de Chaslus (1734–1821), wife of Jean-François, duc de Narbonne-Lara, and lady-in-waiting to Princess Marie Adélaide, although...

    £775

  2. EYRE, Henry.

    A Brief Account of the Holt Waters, containing one Hundred and Twelve eminent Cures, perform’d by the Use of the...

    London: Printed for J. Roberts … 1731.

    First edition. The waters from Bath, Bristol and Holt, in Wiltshire, were the most popular English mineral waters of the eighteenth century, in no small part due to the activity of Henry Eyre, ‘Sworn Purveyor to Her Majesty [Queen Caroline, wife of George II] for all Mineral Waters’. Eyre ran a distribution...

    £750

  3. [FARSARI, Adolfo, Studio of.]

    Japanese flower seller.

    [Yokohama?, c. 1887.]

    A striking image of a Japanese flower vendor, with delicate contemporary hand colouring, most notably to the flowers. After time spent in America, where he fought in the Civil War, Adolfo Farsari (1841 - 1898) moved to Japan in 1873, establishing himself in Yokohama. In 1885 he opened his own...

    £200

  4. FINÉ, Oronce. 

    Opere di Orontio Fineo … divise in cinque parti, arimetica, geometria, cosmografia, e orivoli, tradotte da...

    Venice, Francesco Franceschi, 1587. 

    First Italian edition of the works of Finé.  Among the most influential scientific scholars of the sixteenth century, over three decades at the Collège Royale Oronce Finé (1494–1555) made considerable contributions to various branches of mathematics, from geometry and arithmetic to astronomy...

    £2750

  5. [FIRST AID – RAILWAYS.] 

    Ministère des chemins de fer, postes et télégraphes. Administration des chemins de fer de l’état. Manuel...

    Gand, F.& R. Buyck Frères, 1912. 

    First separate edition, as far as we are aware with no institutional holdings, of this guide to first aid in a railway context, published by the state railway administration of Belgium. 

    £195

  6. FISHER, George.

    The instructor: or, young man’s best companion…to which is added the family’s best companion…

    London, for A. Bettesworth and C. Hitch, [not before 1735].

    Second edition, (first, 1727). ‘Volumes entitled The Young Man’s companion exist in many versions and go back to the 1680s when William Mather produced the first of them. They are compendiums of useful information, intended for self-improvement. They concentrate on English, Mathematics, including...

    £850

  7. FRANZ, Wolfgang.

    Animalium historia sacra, in qua plerorumque animalium praecipuae proprietates in gratiam studiosorum theologiae...

    Amsterdam, Jan Jansson, 1643.

    First Jansson edition (fifth overall). First published in Wittenberg in 1612, the Animalium historia sacra is the most successful work of the Lutheran theologian Wolfgang Franz (1564 – 1628), providing a careful study of the creatures appearing in the Bible, both real and mythical.

    £75

  8. FREUD, Sigmund.

    Die Zukunft einer Illusion.

    Leipzig/Vienna/Zürich, Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1927.

    First edition, in the first issue of 5000 copies, of Freud’s work on the origins and future development of religion (the ‘illusion’ of the title), centred on the notion of religion as, in one form or another, wish-fulfilment and the longing for a paternal figure as a response to a realisation...

    £85

  9. GABRIELE, Giacomo. 

    Dialogo di M. Iacomo Cabriele, nelquale de la sphera, et gli orti et occasi de le stelle, minutamente si...

    [Colophon:] Venice, Giovanni de Farri et fratelli, 1545. 

    First editions of the two principal works of Giacomo Gabriele (1510–1550), nephew and pupil of the Italian humanist Trifone Gabriele, the first with numerous contemporary annotations. 

    £3500

  10. GARSAULT, François-Alexandre de.

    Le nouveau parfait maréchal, ou la connoissance générale et universelle du cheval, divisé...

    Paris, Moreau for Hochereau, 1770.

    Fourth edition of one of the most popular French horsemanship manuals. First published in 1741 as a successor to Solleysel’s famous Parfait maréchal and reprinted in at least sixteen editions over the following century, Le nouveau parfait maréchal ‘is considered to be the best...

    £650

  11. GASPAROLI, Carlo Maria.

    Dialectica sive manuductio ad logicam dictata a R. P. Bar. De Somere. Scripta a me Car. Mar. Gasparoli....

    Antwerp, 1753.

    A handsome manuscript comprising a thorough course in logic and dialectic, executed by a student at the Jesuit college in Antwerp, and illustrated with an extraordinary decorative programme inspired by printed emblems.

    £4750

  12. GAYOT DE PITAVAL (Conseil).

    Question d’estat: fille reclamée par deux meres.

    Paris, Nicolas le Gras, 1716.

    First edition of this account by the famous advocate François Gayot de Pitaval (1673–1743) of a 1709 case, where a midwife had substituted a new-born girl who was then claimed both by the real mother and the woman to whom the baby had been given. Pitaval’s account details the principles by...

    £350

  13. GIBSON, William.

    The true Method of Dieting Horses, containing many curious and useful Observations concerning their Marks, Colour...

    London, John Osborn and Thomas Longman, 1726.

    Second edition of a text devoted solely to the diet of horses, dedicated to Colonel Charles Churchill, under whom Gibson had served until 1720. The text is prefaced by a letter to the author from William Hope, translator of de Solleysel, complimenting the author in the highest of terms: ‘If...

    £320

  14. GIBSON, William, and William GIBSON (editor).

    Mr. Gibson’s short practical Method of Cure for Horses, extracted...

    London, A. Millar, 1755.

    First abridged edition of Gibson’s New Treatise, published by his son and assistant of the same name, who had taken over the father’s practice upon his death in 1750. Concluding the preface to his New Treatise, written some four days before his death, William Gibson the elder...

    £350

  15. [GRANT, Charles, Vicomte de Vaux.]

    Recueil d’Essais, ou précis des opinions, et des mémoires, du Vte de *** …

    A Londres: De l’Imprimerie de T. Spilsbury & Fils. 1793.

    An interesting tract volume, containing the scarce collected thoughts of Charles Grant, vicomte de Vaux (a subscriber’s copy), a fine illustrated guide to Nîmes and the Pont du Gard, and three pamphlets relating to a controversy in the medical faculty in Edinburgh.

    £1500

  16. GRIFFITHS, William, and Henry BUNBURY (illustrator).

    A practical Treatise on Farriery, deduced from the Experience...

    Wrexham, R. Marsh, [1784].

    First edition of this informative treatise by the groom to the Williams Wynn family, from the library of Sir Watkin Williams Wynn’s political ally, William Mostyn Owen. A farrier to the Williams Wynns of Wynnstay since at least the 1740s, Griffiths dedicates the work to his second master from...

    £1100

  17. [GROUX, Charles Jacques (engraver).]

    Planches relatives a l’instruction concernant l’exercice et les manoeuvres des...

    Paris, Magimel, ‘An X’ [1801].

    Second edition, expanded, of a set of French Revolutionary plates for the instruction of the cavalry. Comprising over one hundred and fifty copper-engraved plates showing cavalry horses, equipment, and manoeuvres, the present work follows a smaller publication by Magimel of the same title, issued...

    £275

  18. [GUARINI, Giambattista Lascaris].

    Ragionamenti filosofici.

    Rome, Gioacchino Puccinelli, 1785 [-6].

    Only edition, very uncommon, of this collection of 33 essays on scientific and philosophical subjects, published with the aspiration to provide a complete course of physics and philosophy. The work is divided into four parts. The first deals with materialism and idealism, the physical attributes of bodies,...

    £1500

  19. [GUYOT, Edme.]

    Nouveau sistème du microcosme; ou, Traité de la nature de l'homme: dans lequel on explique la cause du mouvement...

    The Hague (’s Gravenhage ), M.G. de Merville, 1727.

    First edition. ‘The author sought ‘openly to re-establish the macrocosm-microcosm system based on the ancient philosophy. He discussed the four elements’ and imagined a universal life spirit which ‘contained a celestial seed that entered animals through respiration. The reviewer in the...

    £750

  20. HENNEQUIN, Pierre.

    Nouveau cours de rhétorique, à l’usage de la jeunesse des deux sexes; dédié à sa Majesté l’Impératrice...

    Moscow, Auguste Semen, 1818.

    Only edition, very uncommon, of this guide to rhetoric by the Moscow-based French grammarian Pierre Hennequin (1772–1849), explicitly designed for both sexes and dedicated to the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna (1759–1828).

    £1250